Perhaps one of the most personal and intimate relations between people is sexual activity. If sexual activity between intimate partners becomes difficult, the entire interpersonal relationship can become strained. For some people, these sexual activity problems can rise to the level of sexual dysfunction. Sexual dysfunction includes desire, arousal, orgasm and sex pain disorders. In addition, a patients' complaints, physical symptoms, and emotions may be difficult to diagnose and treat due to the combined physical and psychological natures of such disorders.
Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) includes a disorder called Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD). FSAD is the persistent or recurrent inability to attain or maintain sufficient lubrication or swelling responses during sexual activity resulting in personal distress. Medical studies show that up to 43% of women may now suffer from FSD. Individuals who have FSAD can include women who are bored of sexual routines, receive inadequate stimulation (because of age or partner), or even have clitoris blood flow or engorgement problems. It is believed that ensuring clitoral tumescence (i.e., engorgement, swelling, and erection) can play an important role in solving FSAD. For some FSAD patients, it is simply enough to get past the clitoral tumescence stage and then sexual intercourse may become pleasurable again.
While some FSAD patients receive vasoactive gel to aid in blood flow for clitoral tumescence, this type of treatment is not necessarily effective for all women. As a result, non-pharmaceutical devices can be helpful in treating FSAD patients. Previous devices for clitoral stimulation have used friction, vibration and suction. Friction has the problem of potentially preventing blood flow to the clitoris and preventing tumescence. Vibration can provide stimulation to the clitoris but does not necessarily encourage tumescence, and vibration can also case irritation, soreness, and itching. Suction encourages tumescence, but does not stimulate the clitoris like vibration or friction. In fact, suction devices tend to seal the clitoris area due to the suction device structure and this may cause discomfort.